^ t££ MC 5M 



FIRST LESSONS IN THE 
NEW THOUGHT 



J.W.WINK.LEY M,D, 




Book. ."Ui_7L 

(kpightW 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



First Lessons in the 
New Thought 



First Lessons in the 
New Thought 



©r, Ufoe 1KHa£ to the 
floeal Xife 



BY 

J. W. WINKLEY, M.D., 

|| 

-Editor of Practical Ideals and Author of " John Brown 
the Hero : Personal Reminiscences," etc. 



-8? 



BOSTON 
JAMES H. WEST COMPANY 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
MAY 6 1904 
Copyright Entry 

CLASS^ ou XXo. No. 

8 ■ L ^ ^- L 

COPY B 




Copyright, 1904 
By James H. West Company 




14 



A copy of this book, in cloth binding, will be sent by the 

Publishers, postage paid, to any address within 

the Postal Union, on receipt of 60 cents, 

or in paper covers for 30 cents. 



Contents 



PAGE 

I. Introductory 9 

II. The Power of the Mind 13 

III. Health Natural — Disease Unnatural 19 

IV. Health Pleasurable — Disease Painful 26 
V. Health Harmonious — Disease Inhar- 
monious 32 

VI. Man's Many-Sidedness 35 

VII. The New Thought and God 40 

VIII. The New Thought and Man 45 

IX. The Fact of the Healing 55 



First Lessons in the 
New Thought 

i 

Introductory 

THERE is an earnest desire on the part 
of most people to-day to know about 
the new Mental Healing, and especially 
to know how to apply it with benefit to them- 
selves. If it is good and worth having, they 
want it. They want to know the truth about 
it and to know how to use it if it is useful. 
This is in accord with the good, plain common 
sense of Americans. 



io First Lessons in the New Thought 

But there are many who have not yet 
become familiar with it. Others have learned 
somewhat of it, yet not enough to grasp its 
principles. Still less are they able success- 
fully to use the same. 

These First Lessons are designed to meet 
the wants of such persons, and of beginners 
generally in their study of the subject. 

The lessons are elementary, and the en- 
deavor has been to present the plain, simple 
facts and principles of the Mental Cure in the 
simplest, plainest English, — in untechnical 
language easily understood by every one. 

The subject is many sided. We may look 
at it on its therapeutical side, as a cure, or we 
may consider its moral side — for it surely has 
a moral side. And it has a religious or spirit- 
ual side, as can readily be seen. 

And yet the main truths and basic princi- 
ples of it are simple, easy to learn and easy to 
understand. For the sake of simplicity we 
will divide the whole subject into two parts. 



Introductory 1 1 

The lessons of this series will deal only with 
one of them, namely, that which has to do 
with self-treatment and self-cure. In another 
series we may take up the other half — the 
treatment and cure of others. 

In this series we are to see how one can 
use or direct his mind — the thought, feeling, 
and will — for his own health, or for the cure 
of his own ills and ails. 

We must remember, however, that the ills 
and ails are not alone of the body. There 
are mental ills and ails, and moral ills and 
ails, which need cure or to be prevented as 
much at least as do the physical — those of 
the body. 

From what has been said, it will readily be 
seen that, in this new cure, much is made of 
the mind. The mind is above the body. To 
call it meta-physics y therefore, is very proper, — 
" beyond the physical.'* 

Again, in this cure much is made of thought 
and its power ; of ideas — the creations of the 



1 2 First Lessons in the New Thought 

mind. Therefore, this cure can have no better 
name than Idealism. But more : ideas are 
dynamic, — are a power, — and can be put to 
use, can be made practical. Therefore this 
cure, its philosophy and useful application, 
can well be named Practical Idealism ; and its 
believers and advocates and practitioners are 
Idealists — Practical Idealists. 



II 
The Power of the Mind 



TO show plainly the truth of Mental Cure, 
and to make clear how naturally and 
easily it is done, we will start from the 
simple, well-known facts which everybody 
knows and will readily acknowledge.- The 
first of such facts is that the mind has an 
influence, a power, over the body. The mind, 
its activities, its states or conditions, has an 
influence on the body. That is, the thoughts 
and feelings, emotions and passions, exert a 
power, have an effect, upon the body. 

The doctors had long known and testified 
that this is true, though they took little advan- 
tage of it for good. 



14 First Lessons in the New Thought 

A noted physician years ago stated the 
truth in this excellent way : " The mind has 
a powerful influence over the body for health 
or disease." No Christian Scientist ever voiced 
the fact more tersely or truthfully. There is 
nothing surer, nothing more thoroughly estab- 
lished, than the fact of the power of the mind 
to affect the body, — to produce illness or 
to restore health. Those who have known 
nothing about mental cure see plainly that 
this is true, for continually, right before their 
eyes, they have proofs of it. Indeed, they 
probably know it well from personal experi- 
ence — to some extent. 

They have seen first or last how undue 
excitement, severe depression, intense anxiety, 
have affected their appetite and digestion. 
Perhaps from the strain of business troubles, 
dread of failure and loss, or from some terrible 
affliction, they have been thrown suddenly into 
a dangerous fever or a complete break-down 
of health. 

On the other hand, everybody knows, after 



The Power of the Mind 1 5 

these many years of prevalent mental cure, as 
also by their own experience, how the mind 
when cheerful, happy, joyous, acts ever power- 
fully to preserve and to restore the health. 

All this seems simple and true to every- 
body, now that attention has been called 
thereto and all have observed or experienced 
it. 

Here we have the primary fact, the obvious 
truth, acknowledged by everybody, of mental 
cure. It is singular that this should not 
always have been seen and known by every- 
body, or that it should ever have been doubted. 

If any one is asked, even a child, what 
gives life to the body, he would answer : the 
soul or spirit. The common belief is that 
when the mind or spirit goes out of the body 
the life is gone and dissolution takes place. 
If the spirit is the life of the body it surely 
is also its health, the lesser being included in 
the greater. 

Now let us see what follows from this. 
Step by step we wish to lead our readers who 



1 6 First Lessons in the New Thought 

are unfamiliar with this Cure to see the truth 
about it and the way in which it can be made 
available for manifold and inestimable benefit. 

One must notice well the statement that 
the mind can act, and in fact always does act, 
as asserted by the doctors, and as we have all 
experienced, " for the health or for the disease 
of the body." The mind can act in two ways, 
— one way for disease, the other way for 
health. 

What more natural or important, when we 
understand this fact, than that we should ask, 
in the first place, what states or conditions the 
mind is in when it works to produce illness, 
when it works to throw the body into disease. 
The answer is so simple and easy that it states 
itself. We have seen, by the illustrations 
already given, that it is such states as fear, 
dread, anxiety, disappointment, despair. These 
states of mind are the disturbed, depressed, 
distressed thoughts and feelings. 

On the other hand, we have seen, by the 
examples already presented, that the states of 



The Power of the Mind 17 

mind which are favorable to health and which 
work for recovery are those that are equable, 
tranquil, that are exhilarating instead of de- 
pressing, cheerful instead of sad, joyous instead 
of grievous. 

The general law seems to be that all the 
tranquil, orderly, undisturbed states of mind, 
of every kind and in any degree, always tend 
to health, — are healthful ; while, oppositely, 
all the disturbed, distressful states, of every 
sort and to any extent, tend always to produce 
bodily disorders, — are diseasef ul. 

How simple all this is, and how true ! Did 
any one ever have any experience not in accord 
with it ? We do not say that a little fear, a 
slight worry, a small degree of distress of 
mind, will make one seriously ill immediately. 
But all these have, even if in small measure, 
their disordering effects, and, if long con- 
tinued, bring serious consequences. 

Here, to repeat it, we have, simple and self- 
evident, the first important fact or fundamental 
truth in Mental or Spiritual Therapeutics, 



1 8 First Lessons in the New Thought 

namely : that the tranquil, calm, poised, peace- 
ful (what we may call the natural) states of 
mind always tend to health — are healthful ; 
and, oppositely, that the disturbed, disquieted, 
distressed states of mind ever tend to disorder 
the body — are diseasef ul. 

And all this is by a natural law which is of 
transcendent scope and which has far-reaching 
consequences. Knowledge of it and con- 
formity to it promise to be of immense 
practical value to mankind. 



Ill 

Health Natural — Disease 
Unnatural 



WE wish now to call attention to another 
interesting and important fact in con- 
nection with what has preceded. It 
is valuable because it is knowledge that can 
be put to practical use ; and although a simple 
truth, it is one which we need to understand 
and realize fully. 

Whatever is in accord, in harmony, with 
Nature, we rightly call natural. That is what 
natural means, as we all know. On the other 
hand, whatever is out of accord, out of har- 
mony, with Nature, is unnatural. That is 



20 First Lessons in the New Thought 

what unnatural means. This is all simple, 
self-evident, if we think of it. 

The reader has already anticipated our appli- 
cation of this truth. We are safe, without any 
question, in asserting that health, physical or 
bodily health, is natural to man ; is in accord 
and in harmony with Nature. Equally true 
must it be that disease is unnatural, out of 
accord or harmony with Nature and Nature's 
laws. That is, disease is the consequence, as 
we are accustomed to say, of our violation of 
Nature's beautiful laws and beneficent order, 
which are God's laws and order. 

Now, it surely follows, if health is natural 
and disease is unnatural, that all the states or 
conditions of mind which tend always to pro- 
duce disease — the disturbed, disorderly, and 
distressed thoughts and feelings — are like- 
wise unnatural to man, out of accord and har- 
mony with Nature and with man's nature. 

What are these unnatural states, thoughts, 
feelings, and passions which are unhealthful 



Health Natural 21 

and tend always to produce bodily disorder, 
sickness, and disease ? We have already men- 
tioned some of them, such as severe fright, 
dread, grief, and so forth. But these are 
not all ; because all disturbed, distressed, dis- 
ordered states of mind whatsoever are disease- 
ful and therefore unnatural to us, — are out 
of harmony with Nature's order, and with our 
own orderly nature, physical and mental. 

This is true of every disturbed state, of 
every kind and degree. Fear, worry, anxiety, 
grief, regret, remorse, despair, resentment, 
brooding care and disappointment, feelings 
of disgrace, shame, and guiltiness, an upbraid- 
ing conscience, feelings of hatred, malice, 
revenge, cankerous suspicion, envy, jealousy, 
bitterness, ill will, ill temper — in a word, all 
the ill passions and vicious, sinful disorders 
of mind, heart, and soul are unhealthful and 
unnatural. 

Is there not truth in the old, old saying 
that sickness, disease, came into the world 
by sin ? 



22 First Lessons in the New Thought 

But let us now look on the other and more 
pleasant picture. It is just as true, oppositely, 
that — as effect follows cause — health follows 
the orderly, natural state of mind, good 
thoughts and feelings. 

Does not all our experience prove this, when 
we come to think of it ? The trouble has 
been, we heretofore have not given our atten- 
tion and thought to these all-important truths, 
which are worth more than very much of the 
knowledge we spend years to acquire. 

What are the natural states of mind — 
the feelings, thoughts, desires, good passions 
— which are healthful, restorative, recuperative 
of the health, and which tend to the recovery 
and renewing of the life, strength, and vigor 
of the body ? Let us familiarize ourselves 
with these natural, Nature-given, God-intended 
blessings for man's use and welfare, — the 
health-makers, the life and strength restorers 
and conservers. 

What can they be but faith, hope, love, 



Health Natural 23 

good will, a good conscience, good temper, 
cheer, content, joy, trust ; all serene, tranquil, 
satisfying feelings, exhilaration, exaltation ; all 
happy, joyous, blessed states of mind and 
soul ? These are the life-bestowing, health- 
creative, strength and youth renewing elixirs, 
and they make possible to men length of days. 
These are as natural as they are healthful ; 
are what good Mother Nature tries to make 
our own ; are what the good God and Father 
wishes ever to crown us with. 

Do not indeed our ill states of mind — our 
evil, vicious, sinful thoughts and feelings — 
have to do with our illnesses and diseases ? 
We do not live out half our natural days, half 
the natural length of life which Nature — or 
the God of Nature — designs us to live. The 
present average length of life is only thirty- 
five years. Half or two-thirds of the magnifi- 
cent gift of life on earth which the Creator 
puts into our hand we throw away. Is not 
sickness a sin indeed ? Does not our religion 



24 First Lessons in the New Thought 

have to do with our health, according to the 
above showing ? Would not our morals, virtue, 
religion, spirituality, if they were true, gen- 
uine, and real, be health to our minds, souls, 
and bodies ? 

If what has been said is tenable, we have 
here a momentous truth of far-reaching scope 
and transcendent value. It is no less than 
this : that the very states of mind — right 
thoughts, good feelings, lofty passions, noble 
desires and affections — which are healthful 
tend to keep us well and, if we are ill, to 
restore us to health, and are also the natural, 
normal thoughts and feelings for us : are also 
virtuous, moral, spiritual, and truly religious. 
Faith, trust, love, good will, chastity, purity 
of heart, nobleness of soul, humility, mag- 
nanimity, righteousness, holiness, — these are 
religion itself, and make up virtue, morals, 
spirituality. 

Oppositely, the ill states of mind and heart 



Health Natural 25 

and soul — all ill feelings and evil passions, 
which, as we have found, are unhealthful and 
therefore unnatural and out of harmony with 
our true nature — are immoral, vicious, un- 
spiritual, and irreligious. 

Of a truth, then, we can say, largely at 
least, that our bodily health depends on our 
mental, moral, and spiritual health. 



IV 



H ealth Pleasurable 
Painful 



Disease 



LET us review a little our study thus far 
in these First Lessons. 

We agreed, I will take it for granted, 
that the mind or soul or spirit — call it what 
we will — animates the body, gives, or is, the 
life of the body. 

Secondly, it was decided that this animat- 
ing life-force, the mind (or soul or spirit), 
exerts an influence over the body, either for 
good or for evil, for health or for disease. 
When the mind, on the one hand, is in its 
orderly, tranquil, equable states it works for 



Health Pleasurable 27 

bodily health and recovery. In other words, 
its action then is healthful. When, however, 
the mind is in disorderly, disturbed states of 
thought, feeling, emotion, it produces, or tends 
to produce, disorder — diseases of the body. 
In other words, its action in such case is 
diseaseful. 

Next, we found, much to our satisfaction, 
that the states of mind — the thoughts and 
feelings — which are healthful and which tend 
always to bodily health and recovery are also 
moral and spiritual states, such as faith, love, 
charity, good will, benevolence, a good con- 
science, honesty, innocence, purity, and the 
like. Oppositely and just as certainly, the 
states of mind which are unhealthf ul we found 
to be also immoral and unspiritual, many of 
them even vicious and sinful, such as hate, 
malice, ill will, envy, jealousy, wrath, revenge, 
and so forth. 

Still further, the conclusion was forced upon 
us that the healthful states of mind, which are 
also good, moral, and spiritual, must be the 



28 First Lessons in the New Thought 

natural ones for us to have : the natural ones, 
that is, in the sense of their being in accord 
with Nature and her laws — in accord with 
the God of Nature and of Nature's laws. On 
the other hand, it seems equally evident that 
the unhealthful states of mind, which are also 
wrong, foolish, vicious, and sinful, must be 
unnatural, at least in the sense that they are 
not in accord with Nature — for she ever tries 
to cure us and keep us well ; and are not in 
accord with the beneficent intent and wish of 
the God of Nature — for surely He does not 
desire to have us ill of body any more than 
ill of mind or heart or soul ; that is to say, 
vicious, wicked, or sinful. 

Now, if we are agreed substantially as to 
the foregoing, we are prepared to take another 
step in advance. 

And we find, next, the fact, perfectly self- 
evident to us when we think of it, that health 
is pleasurable. First of all, we notice that 
physical, bodily health is pleasurable. Sec- 
ondly, that equally so is the health of the 



Health Pleasurable 29 

inner man ; that our healthful states of mind 
— and our good, our moral states as well — 
are also pleasurable to us, are agreeable and 
happy states. Such, of course, are faith, hope, 
love, good will, trust, joy, generosity, a good 
conscience, — all our noble, exalted, magnani- 
mous thoughts and feelings. All these are as 
pleasurable, indeed, as they are healthful ; and 
surely they are moral and spiritual conditions 
of all men's minds and hearts. 

Exactly opposite thereto, it is just as self- 
evident that disease is painful. First, bodily, 
physical disease, in all its forms, is painful. 
Secondly, that mental and moral illness or dis- 
order is painful ; that all our states and condi- 
tions of mind and heart, our thoughts and feel- 
ings, which are unhealthful are also unpleasant 
and painful to us ; are unhappy states of mind, 
while they are at the same time wrong, evil 
states — immoral, vicious, sinful. Such of 
course are (as we have already seen) hatred, 
ill will, malice, envy, jealousy, — all evil pas- 
sions, vices, and sins. All these are as pain- 



3<d First Lessons in the New Thought 

ful as they are destructive of the health ; are 
as painful as they are evil and sinful. 

What is more grand or beneficent and, 
withal, beautiful in the universe than this 
wonderful fact or truth, showing the goodness 
of its almighty Author and Ordainer ? The 
good God has placed His stamp of approval, 
as it were, upon all things that he would have 
us be and do and have, — as if to prove to us, 
so that we could not by any means err, that 
they are good and nothing but good for us, — 
by making them agreeable, pleasurable, to us, 
as well as healthful to body and mind. 

And contrariwise, the good God, thus show- 
ing just as much His goodness, has placed 
His mark of disapproval upon all things 
that He would we should not do and be and 
have, — showing us thereby that they are not 
good for us, — by making them unpleasant 
and painful as well as unhealthful. 

Who ever yet got any pleasure out of fear, 
worry, ill will, resentment, feelings of hatred, 
wrath, revenge, envy, jealousy, cowardice, 



Health Pleasurable 31 

guiltiness, and the like, any more than pleas- 
ure out of bodily sickness, disorder, disease ? 
On the contrary, who ever found any pain, 
felt any distress, in possessing faith, hope, 
love, good will, courage, generosity, nobleness, 
and the like, any more than bodily pain in 
health and strength ? 

It is not our purpose here to enlarge upon 
this subject, but must take occasion to affirm 
our conviction that this Healing Gospel, 
carried out consistently in our lives, would 
solve for us, or go far to solve for us, the 
great problem of Happiness. 



V 

Health Harmonious — Disease 
Inharmonious 



BUT this is not all. We discover other 
tests, other proofs, of what is healthful 
and pleasurable, moral and spiritual, 
and, withal, natural for us. 

We find that all these states of mind are 
also harmonious and beautiful. Bodily health 
is harmony. Physical health is always beauti- 
ful. Similarly, mental, moral, and spiritual 
health is harmonious and beautiful. Virtue, 
morality, spirituality are in themselves harmony 
and beauty. They are harmony and beauty of 
spirit, and, by their inherent power, tend ever 
to make beautiful and harmonious the body, 



Health Harmonious 33 

face, form, and features ; tend ever to express 
themselves in bodily harmony, health, and 
beauty. 

On the other hand, how evident it is that 
bodily disease, in all its forms, is inharmony. 
It is also unbeautiful, is ugliness. 

Similarly, again, mental and moral disor- 
ders — vice, sin, crime — are inharmonious 
and unbeautiful. They are inharmony and 
ugliness of spirit (or mind or soul), and tend 
ever to express themselves in bodily disease, 
in discord, deformity, and ugliness of the 
body, form, face, and features. 

We will conclude this lesson by asking : 
Who can say, in the face of these facts, — if 
we agree that they are facts, — that religion 
has nothing to do with our health? When 
we stop to reflect upon it, who can believe 
for a moment, in the light of our common 
experience, that sin and sickness do not 
naturally go together ; that selfishness and 
sin have no causal connection with disease 
and death ? . 



34 First Lessons in the New Thought 

We are assured that our physical health 
has an essential dependence on our mental, 
moral, and spiritual health. Religion, pure 
and undefiled, — as real goodness and true 
love, — must ever act in accordance, in one- 
ness, with God's beautiful laws, for our health 
and happiness. Our religion, other necessary 
things being in accord, should keep us well 
and make us happy. Our health of body is 
a test, therefore, whether our religion is pure, 
our love true, our goodness genuine. 

Think not that this Gospel of Health and 
Healing has alone to do with physical thera- 
peutics, or that it means only cure of bodily 
disease. It is mental and moral therapeutics. 
In its primary element it is religion itself, part 
and parcel of Christianity : by which we mean, 
the Christianity of Christ, the Great Physi- 
cian. 



VI 

Man's Many-Sidedness 



WE started with the proposition that 
man is a soul and has a body ; that 
the two are intimately related for 
wise and beneficent purposes. Soul or mind 
primarily has power over the body, as its life- 
force, for its weal or woe. 

We found that physicians have put this 
truth in the following form : The mind has 
a powerful influence over the body for health 
or disease. The fact thus stated we all know 
from experience. 

It thus appears that the mind can work in 
opposite ways on the body, one way for its 



36 First Lessons in the New Thought 

health, and another way resulting in illness or 
disease. 

Then we looked to see when and how the 
mind acts healthfully on the body, and when 
and how it acts to cause disease. We found 
that the states (thoughts and feelings) of the 
mind which are orderly, pleasant, and har- 
monious tend to health — are healthful ; and 
that the states of the mind which are dis- 
orderly, unpleasant, or painful and inharmoni- 
ous, tend ever to produce bodily disorder — 
are diseaseful. 

The truths thus stated are simple matters 
of experience, which every one can understand, 
and, what is more and better, which all can 
put to use, immensely to their profit. 

We gave examples of these two opposite 
states of mind. On the one hand, faith, 
hope, trust, courage, joy, good will, and so 
forth, are healthful. On the other hand, 
such states of mind as fear, worry, distrust, 
despair, dissatisfaction, ill will, envy, re- 



Man's Many-Sidedness 37 

sentment, jealousy, hate, and so forth, are 
unhealthful. 

We have found also that those states of 
mind (or heart or soul) which are healthful, 
are likewise moral and spiritual, and that those 
which are unhealthful are unmoral and un- 
spiritual, most of them vicious and immoral. 
Thus we discerned the causal relation of 
morals, spirituality, and religion to our health. 

Our next step — to make clearer the fore- 
going as well as to lead on to the closing 
lessons — is to consider somewhat the nature 
or constitution of man. 

We shall not attempt here a scientific or 
exhaustive analysis of man's nature. This has 
never been done, and cannot be done as yet, 
by the greatest philosophers. We shall only 
try to understand him sufficiently for our 
present practical purposes. 

Man is a spiritual being, — a spirit, let us 
say. When we speak of a man as a whole, as 
a complete being or unit, we prefer the term 



38 First Lessons in the New Thought 

spirit to the usual term soul. But he is a very 
complex being, a manifold being; yet is he 
one. As Saint Paul says of the body : " It 
has many members, yet is one body," — all 
the parts working together in harmony, each 
for all and all for each, — so the spirit has 
many members or constituents, and yet is one 
spirit. 

Let us see how complex is man's nature. 
The tree gives us a rough analogy : it consists - 
of a trunk having many branches and rooted in 
the earth from which it draws its life. The 
spirit of man opens out or divides into three 
or four main branches, making it triune or 
quadruple ; the mind, the heart, the soul, and 
the will. Each of these branch again. The 
mind has faculties, — reason, judgment, and 
so forth ; the heart has feelings or emotions ; 
the soul has qualities with which especially we 
have to deal in these lessons. 

The spirit also seems to be endowed with 
attributes (as we will call them) of a supreme 



Man's Many-Sidedness 39 

character, — wisdom, love, goodness, and con- 
science. 

We have by no means summed up the full 
nature or powers of man, but have said enough 
to show his many-sidedness as a spiritual 
being. He is the child of the Infinite, and, 
may we not say, surely partakes of the divine, 
the deific, character of the All-Parent. 



VII 

The New Thought and God 

-*> 

IT has been questioned by our clerical and 
other critics whether the healing or health 

gospel, which we preach and try to put into 
practice, is Christian ; whether it is not devoid 
of ethics and religion. 

Our general reply, were we to say no more, 
would be that it is hardly anything else but 
these. 

As time passes, our friends will under- 
stand us better. We say frankly, we hold 
that our conceptions, moral and spiritual, 
are higher than those generally held. Were 
it otherwise, we should not so much value 
them and labor for their propagation. We 
should be the last to claim that all the 



The New Thought and God 41 

ideas put forth by individuals in this move- 
ment are above question, or that many of the 
opinions held are not untenable ; but the 
exceptions generally relate to non-essentials 
and not to fundamental things. What we do 
claim is that, as far as our judgment goes, 
what are held as essentials generally by New 
Thought people are very high conceptions of 
ethical, spiritual, and religious truth ; that is 
to say, if you like, are truths of Christianity. 

Look briefly, for example, at the idea of the 
"Supremacy of the Spirit. " New Thought 
people, it would seem evident from their 
spiritual healing, are intense believers in the 
spirit — in the reality and power of the spirit ; 
in the Infinite Spirit, and in the human spirit 
also, as derived from the Infinite ; and they 
believe that this spirit, man, whom we call 
human, is divine, as is his Source. 

Moreover, their conception of this Infinite 
Spirit, Mind, Heart, Soul, — that is to say, of 
God, the Father, — is as much higher than 
the ordinary dogmatic, creedal portrayal of 



42 First Lessons in the New Thought 

Him as the heavens are higher than the 
earth. 

Some one said recently that somebody had 
" discovered God." This discovery has been 
made by the Christian Scientists, whoever 
else has made it. 

We read in the New Testament that it is 
immortal life to know God and Jesus Christ 
whom he hath sent. All New Thought doers 
of the "works" have had God revealed to 
them at first hand. How ? In the healing 
which they have been doing in obedience to 
the great teacher's command. All phases of 
the great movement of modern times — Faith 
Cure, Divine Healing, Christian Science, 
Mental Cure — have sprung from the healing: 
the healing of disease, physical, mental, and 
moral. And God, the Father and Healer, 
has thus been revealed to them. They have 
experienced Him, have felt and known Him 
directly, felt and known His life, power, good- 
ness, and love. He is an immanent, a living, 
working, healing power, healing them of phys- 



"The New Thought and God 43 

ical ills as well as transforming their minds, 
hearts, and souls. He has thus become to 
them a reality so present and living that they 
ask no other evidence of his reality. 

And note, God is thus revealed to them as 
a God of Goodness. The words are with 
them interchangeable. He is in reality All- 
Good. He is so infinitely good that his good- 
ness swallows up all evil. All things work 
together for good. They will not tolerate the 
thought that there can be any real evil in the 
universe. Note their language and see how 
their thought has changed from the usual 
religious ideas. They no longer use, for 
example, in their language about the good 
God, the word punishment. It is simply 
inconceivable that God should ever punish. 
When we put ourselves out of harmony with 
Him, out of harmony with His beautiful order 
and perfect laws, He ordains results that we 
call evil. But it is all out of His love, to 
bring us back to Him, to bring us back to 
happiness and joy, not for punishment. 



44 First Lessons in the New Thought 

The good God of the New Thought people 
is never wrathful, angry, or even displeased 
with his children or with anything of his 
creation. He can do only works of love, can 
have no feelings but pleasurable ones. He is 
God of infinite joy as well as of goodness 
and love, and He is ever transforming His 
children into His own divine image, creatures 
of the same joy, peace, love, and holiness. 
This God they have found worthy of love, 
trust, and worship. 

The New Thought people have discovered 
man also, and they have found him a worthy 
child of this infinitely good God. This sub- 
ject has to do with the next lesson. 



VIII 



The New Thought and Man 



WE said in the previous lesson that, in the 
New Thought, among other discover- 
ies, man has come to light. And, if 
the New Thought of man is even approx- 
imately correct, this is a real discovery. The 
old conception of him, almost diametrically 
opposite to the new, shows that he had not 
yet been found, but remained largely an 
unknown and unexplored world. It was 
taken for granted, simply from outside ap- 
pearances, that disorder reigned. 

It has fared with the spiritual man very 
similarly as with the physical man. Observ- 
ing how almost universal was bodily disease, 
and death by disease, the doctors of the olden 



46 First Lessons in the New Thought 

time declared disease and not health to be 
natural to man. In more modern times the 
conclusion of the medical profession has been 
that both health and disease are about equally- 
natural. The New Therapeutics, on the con- 
trary, asserts that physical health is man's 
normal condition in accord with Nature and 
with the beneficent intention of Nature's 
Author. 

The different ideas about man that have pre- 
vailed can be well illustrated also as follows : 
Explorers find in their travels a new continent. 
Its rough exterior, superficially observed, leads 
them to conclude that it is a wilderness or 
waste — a sort of " bad land." After a long 
time, closer observers find indeed the same 
rough exterior, but that there are riches hidden 
beneath the surface. At last the modern 
explorer arrives and finds " a goodly country/ ' 
" a land flowing with milk and honey," abound- 
ing in wealth, with apparently unlimited re- 
sources. 

So of the new-found world, man. The 



The New Thought and Man 47 

New Thought has discovered that man is 
inherently divine, made in God's image, His 
own offspring, and so partaker of His nature. 
He is made up of attributes, faculties, qualities 
mental, moral, and spiritual. He has no other 
kind of qualities — no innate bad qualities. 
All are essentially good and nothing but good. 
He has a sense-nature also, appetites and pas- 
sions, natural to him, and all good and only good. 
Are there any real attributes of lust, gluttony, 
ill passion in man ? Nay, these are the sensuous 
nature in a state of disorder or disease. There 
is no faculty by which we gain ignorance, but 
a power that enables us to gain knowledge. 
There is no faculty of folly, but there is one 
of reason. There is no faculty of idiocy, but 
there is one of intelligence. Neither is there 
any attribute of badness, but there is one of 
goodness. There is no attribute of hate, but 
there is one of love. There is no quality of 
cowardice, but there is one of courage. There 
is no quality out of which any vice springs, 
but there are moral elements within us from 



48 First Lessons in the New Thought 

which all the virtues blossom, beautiful and 
good. There is an attribute of love in man's 
nature, and true love is wholly unselfish. Is 
there an attribute of selfishness ? 

What is natural to man's body is health, — 
its organs and functions all in order. All 
conditions opposite to this are disorder, de- 
rangement, disease. What is natural to man 
himself, mind, heart, and soul, is also health, 
wholeness, holiness, — his powers, attributes, 
faculties, qualities all whole and sound. Man's 
thoughts, feelings, and emotions flower out of 
these inherent elements making up his nature, 
as the blossom flowers out of the plant. 
Wisdom, goodness, love, faith, hope, courage, 
joy, generosity, and righteousness, all virtue, 
morals, spirituality, are their natural expres- 
sion. Thus only do they manifest themselves. 
All opposite to these can only be these in 
disorder, out of order. Faith is natural to 
man. Trust is natural to man. Courage is 
natural to man. So are intelligence, sanity, 
goodness, love. But fear, grief, despair, 



The New Thought and Man 49 

avarice, hate, and the like, are unnatural to 
man. So is all vice, sin, crime, folly, idiocy, 
insanity. These are no more normal to the 
spiritual being, man, than disease of his body 
is normal. 

To make this truth simple and plain, we 
will put it in a concrete form, as follows : 



Love and 

Wisdom. 



Faith, 

Serenity, 

Hope, 

Courage, 

Joy> 

Aspirations, 

Gratitude, 

Generosity, 

Magnanimity, 

Good will, 

Sympathy, 

Ungrudgingness, 

Affection, 

Honesty, 

Humility, 
In a word, all the good 
passions, virtues, moralities, 
spiritualities, graces, and 
beatitudes possible to 
man. 



Selfishness and 

Ignorance. 

Fear, 

Worry, 

Despair, 

Cowardice, 

Grief, 

Groveling, 

Ingratitude, 

Avarice, 

Meanness, 

111 will, 

Antipathy, 

Jealousy, 

Hatred, 

Deceit, 

Egotism. 
In a word, all the ill pas- 
sions,vices, immoralities, de- 
pravities, crimes, and sins 
— the disorders into which 
man is liable to fall. 



50 First Lessons in the New Thought 

We thus place a few of the main qualities, 
and the respective disorders incident to them, 
opposite each other. Love and Wisdom head 
one column, Selfishness and Ignorance the 
other. These titles show the tap-roots out 
of which the various qualities and disorders 
grow por, what is a better analogy, show the 
parents, father and mother, of the divine off- 
spring on the one hand, and of the evil 
progeny on the other. 

In Mr. Fletcher's excellent little book, full of 
the new healing philosophy, the author makes, 
mostly for convenience, anger and worry the 
tap-roots of man's mental aberrations, although 
he admits that behind and beneath these is fear. 
But there is something deeper even than fear 
as the source of man's moral maladies. The 
root and cause of them all is selfishness. 
Selfishness is the world's great disorder, — 
moral disorder, — out of which all others 
spring. 

Let no one think we are saying anything 
against a true " self-regard " — let us call it — 



The New Thought and Man 5 1 

which belongs to us normally and which it is 
our right and duty to exercise. But fear, 
worry, cowardice, anger, hate, and all the rest 
of our mental and moral disturbances or 
derangements are begotten of our self-regard 
become really morbid and unnatural, and are 
not our normal health and wholeness. Jesus 
gave us the true principle : " Love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself," — self-regard with equal re- 
gard for others ; which, we may say, perfectly 
balance each other and tend ever to — are, 
indeed — health, harmony, happiness. 

But selfishness is the arch-disturber of the 
world's peace. Ignorance, however, ever goes 
along with it, is its reverse side. At any rate, 
if we knew enough, were we wise enough, we 
should never be really selfish. 

Let us put it this way : Ignorant selfishness 
breeds all man's moral evils. In fact, fear, 
worry, hate, ill will, malice, envy, jealousy, all 
vice, iniquity, ill passion, sin are only so many 
varying phases of our parent, root disorder, 
ignorant Selfishness. 



52 First Lessons in the New Thought 

On the other hand, of the parent attributes, 
Love (or unselfishness) and Wisdom, are born 
the moral and spiritual, the divine, qualities 
of man — faith, hope, charity, all virtues, 
graces, spiritualities. All these, and all sim- 
ilar good, true elements belonging to man, are 
inherent in him, potential in his nature. What 
is needed is to draw them out, evolve, unfold 
them ; whereupon, on the new therapeutic 
principle that health cures disease, these qual- 
ities which make up the divine order of moral 
health will displace all evil disorders. Bring 
Love and Wisdom, and all that is kin to them, 
into activity, life, and health, and we will 
thereby displace ignorant Selfishness in all 
its forms and phases. This would not only 
make the individual man and woman free, 
healthy, happy, and beautiful, but would tend 
to banish strife, disorder, war, poverty, crime, 
and all other moral evil, from the world. This 
points the way to the ideal life for the individ- 
ual, the way to the ideal life for mankind. 



The New Thought and Man 53 

Emerson exclaimed, " Oh, my brothers, God 
lives.' ' Yes, and He has children partaking 
of His life, "made in His image, after His 
likeness. ,, As His offspring we are inheritors 
of His divine nature. And with what a 
magnificent endowment has He crowned us ! 
He has created and constituted us after His 
own nature, with elements, attributes, qualities 
only good, beautiful, Godlike, that are thereby 
native to us, inherent in us, making up our 
real selves. 

If from Him, what are they, what can they 
be, but love, goodness, wisdom, holiness ? He 
has endowed us with the divine qualities of 
love, faith, hope, courage, justice, forgiveness, 
the exercise, the use, the unfolding of which 
insure, as certainly as effect follows cause, our 
best good, our truest welfare, our highest well 
being, — our health, wholeness, and happiness, 
— in a word, our life. When shall we realize 
how much life — increased, real life — we may 
have by being our true, God-made selves ! 



54 First Lessons in the New Thought 

If we once fairly experienced it, we should 
never go back to or be content with the 
husks and shells of our old life of fears, resent- 
ments, hatreds, narrowness, miseries, — in a 
word, selfishness in its Protean forms. 

Did we ever find anything but good when- 
ever we have, even in any slight degree, 
brought the high qualities of our nature into 
activity ? The true satisfaction, the inner 
reward, the deep gratification thereof, we have 
well known when we have let them sway our 
minds and hearts. We shall never know, 
however, the full blessedness they give — the 
full blessedness they are — until we allow 
them to reign supreme within us. This would 
be the ideal life. 



IX 



The Fact of the Healing 



PEOPLE are becoming more and more 
favorably disposed toward this new — 
and yet old — method of treating 
disease. Many are now quite ready to try 
its efficacy. But there are still misconceptions 
in the public mind, in regard to it, that hinder 
attention to it and acceptance of it. 

One reason for this is that the new cure 
goes under so many different names — " Chris- 
tian Science," "Mind Cure," " Faith Cure," 
" Mental Healing," " New Thought," and so on. 
This is, and has been, a source of great con- 
fusion. " Mind Cure," the first name by which 
it was popularly known, was a good appellation. 
The term " Christian Science " was, to say the 



56 First Lessons in the New Thought 

least, from the commencement of its use, 
unhappy. It may be inherently Christian in 
its nature. We believe it is truly so. But 
in any case, the right and title to the name, 
by the believers and practitioners, for them- 
selves and their work, they could better leave 
to be determined by the test Christianity itself 
supplies : " By their fruits ye shall know 
them." 

The term which, of all others, best charac- 
terizes this mode of cure, simply as a cure of 
physical disease, — for the term is both defi- 
nite and modest, — is " Mental Healing." It 
is now quite largely used, especially with the 
reasonable and thinking believers in this cure. 
The term " New Thought " popularly in use 
refers more particularly to the philosophy of 
the healing. 

And this leads us to remark the main cause 
of the mistaken notions prevalent in the pub- 
lic mind on this subject. It has been the 
same with this truth as with every other. To 
say that every truth or right is "born in 



The Fact of the Healing 57 

infancy " may be a Hibernianism, but it is 
likely to be fact also. And most new things, 
epoch-making discoveries and inventions, have 
small beginnings. They are very imperfect 
and partial, very crude, at the start and in 
their first stages. 

So has it been with this youthful " Mental 
Healing/ ' The theories of it and the philos- 
ophy put forth about it have been very crude 
and imperfect. Some of its theories, indeed, 
are manifestly as absurd as they are untenable. 
The public has become familiar with them. 
" There is no disease," and so forth. " The 
body, matter, and the material world are 
delusions of the senses.' ' " Sickness, pain, 
sin, and even death have the reality only of 
false ' beliefs/ and no other existence." Its 
very fundamental starting-point and first prin- 
ciple, as laid down and elaborated by its early 
expounders, reaches " the height of the ridic- 
ulous," as can be seen now by the merest 
tyro in logical reasoning. Sickness is declared 
to be simply and only a " seeming " — for it is 



58 First Lessons in the New Thought 

only the senses that say one is sick, and the 
senses, it is said, always lie. It is asserted 
that a man is just as well when he appears 
most ill, even at death's door, as when he is 
apparently in the soundest health. All sick- 
ness, it is claimed, is illusion, therefore there 
is never, in any case, a disease to cure, but 
only an illusion to dispel. What follows ? 
According to this logic, as the senses always 
lie, and as only the opposite of what the senses 
say is true, when a man " seems " most well 
he ought to be the sickest and " his days 
already numbered/' What wonder that these 
irrational theories of mental healing disgust 
and repel plain, common-sense people as well 
as acute thinkers ! 

But now let us hasten to say, on the other 
hand, with the strongest affirmation, that in 
Mental Healing there is a great truth. We 
wish to emphasize it with all our might, for it 
is an immense truth, and its importance can 
hardly be exaggerated. Its unwise believers 
may make extravagant and unwarranted claims 



The Fact of the Healing 59 

for it, but there is much more in it than even 
unprejudiced people think, and a great deal 
more than the doctors in their philosophy of 
it admit. There is not only a great truth 
here, but it admits, we believe, of a reasonable 
explanation, and we believe that a true and 
rational philosophy of it will at length be 
found. In other words, there is such a thing 
as rational Mental Healing. 

What is it ? We have used the word 
"rational" in connection with the term Men- 
tal Healing simply to indicate the explanation 
of this cure, — a reasonable and acceptable 
explanation withal, to the thinking mind, not- 
withstanding the irrational notions mixed up 
with it which have repelled so many people 
from any and all consideration of it. True 
Mental Healing is rational and credible ; it is 
plain common sense. It is simple in its 
nature — simple in principle ; and, in a way, 
its simplicity speaks its truth. All great 
truths and principles are simple, and are seen 
to be so when once understood. 



60 First Lessons in the New Thought 

Rational Mental Healing is true to the 
name in this respect, first of all : it does not 
assume to be able to solve all the problems of 
the universe, or attempt to explain the Infinite 
Mysteries. It -simply strives to give the truth 
as far as possible, to recognize the evident 
facts in the premises, and thereby, most prac- 
tically important of all, to find the best work- 
ing theory of this method of healing. For it 
is the practical healing itself that is of primary 
value and of which we are in great need. 

Those who hold to the rational theory of this 
healing make no denial of matter. Neither do 
they find in their experience that any particular 
theory of matter or denial of its existence is 
necessary to be held by the practitioners in 
order to heal. They furthermore take it for 
granted, from evidence which mankind have 
always been forced, practically at least, to 
accept, that man has a body, and that it is a 
very useful and necessary instrument for him 
to possess. This seems to accord with reason 



The Fact of the Healing 61 

as well as to have the testimony of the senses. 
In fact, the denial of the body's existence will 
generally be taken as a sign that those who 
so deny are bereft of reason — in some meas- 
ure, at any rate. 

In a word, the believers in this rational 
Mental Cure have a very positive philosophy 
of it, though they hold that philosophy, it is 
hoped, not dogmatically, but tentatively and 
as subject to improvement. They feel sure, 
indeed, of its growth and enlargement, and 
that it will be sifted and corrected as time 
goes on and human knowledge increases. 

Of course, the present writer speaks only 
for himself in making this general statement 
of the philosophy, yet he believes it will repre- 
sent in the main the view that is gradually being 
taken by thousands to-day ; a view, that is, 
which is in the direction of the rational, sen- 
sible, and tenable. They accept the fact of 
matter as well as the fact of mind. They 
believe there is a rational physics as well as a 



6 2 First Lessons in the New 'Thought 

rational metaphysics. They acknowledge the 
existence of the body of man as well as 
the reality of his spirit. They acknowledge 
further that disease also has an existence after 
its kind, both physical and moral, and that that 
is the only actual reason, indeed, of the heal- 
ing itself, which we are trying to understand 
and use. They are forced to acknowledge 
those forms of disease which we call sin and 
ignorance, — sad to say, they are only too 
evident, — as well as other evils in the world, 
even among " Christian Scientists," though it 
may not be to their reproach above all others 
of mankind. 

But we must speak a moment, here, of the 
rational philosophy of the human body itself. 
What a marvelous thing it is ! How wonder- 
ful is its structure and mechanism ! Its 
wonderfulness has never been fully known or 
appreciated, and never can be except in the 
light of this new truth. What a marvelous 
piece of machinery it is ! There are several, 



The Fact of the Healing 63 

a half dozen or more, bodies together, and yet 
one. Nerve, muscle, bone, skin, arterial, fluid 
body, and shall we not add psychical body also ? 
What marvelous mechanism, in truth ! and all 
working together in harmony and unity. And 
that is what it is — a machine, a tool, an 
instrument of the spirit, and for the spirit's 
use. A thing of beauty, a marvel, and in 
part a mystery still to man. Why, indeed, 
should we ignore it or deny its existence ? 

There is only one thing more wonderful 
that comes anywhere directly within man's 
conscious knowledge, and that is the spirit. 
The spirit, of course, is the primary reality, as 
it is of paramount importance. For it is not 
only through or by means of the spirit, accord- 
ing to the theory of this cure, that the body 
is healed, but to it the body primarily owes its 
formation, growth, and very existence. 

The one very important inquiry remains to 
be considered here : Is this Healing true ? Is 
it done ? Can cure of disease really be accom- 



64 First Lessons in the New Thought 

plished through the agency of the mind or 
soul nature ? That is the great question to be 
settled. That is really the starting-point from 
which we must set out. If that can be dis- 
proven, then nothing more is to be asked or 
answered. On the other hand, that once 
established, everything follows that is reason- 
able, natural, and helpful. 

We believe that this healing is an estab- 
lished fact. The evidence of it seems to be 
simply overwhelming. The best minds of 
to-day that have examined the subject affirm 
it. Frances Power Cobbe, one of the ablest 
women in Great Britain, says : " That there is 
such a thing appears to my judgment a fact 
beyond dispute." Prof. John H. Denison, of 
Williams College, asks in regard to this agency 
to meet disease: "Can it cure anything?" 
And he answers: "That here is a curative 
power seems to be a tolerably well attested 
fact." Again he says: "One has but to 
glance at the array of facts to satisfy him- 



^he Fact of the Healing 65 

self that the mind does possess a somewhat 
extraordinary curative power." Dr. J. M. 
Buckley's words are well known : " The fact 
that most extraordinary recoveries have been 
produced, some of them instantaneously, from 
diseases in some cases generally considered to 
be incurable by ordinary treatment, must be 
admitted." 

The testimony to the fact of Mental Healing 
can be marshaled without end. The historical 
evidence of its truth ought to be conclusive to 
any mind. It is as old as the world, almost. 
It is no new-fangled notion or modern discov- 
ery. It has existed in all times and has been 
practised in a larger or less degree by all 
nations, — in a crude way even among prim- 
itive peoples and half -savage tribes of men. 
It was the ancient method of healing, and 
we may say the exclusive one, almost. This 
seems to be evidenced by all late researches. 

It is Scriptural, and has all the authority 
and sanction of the sacred records. The 



66 First Lessons in the New Thought 

Bible is full of it, Old Testament and New. 
Elijah, by this method, apparently healed even 
that terrible and otherwise incurable disease, 
leprosy. Elisha, likewise, restored the sick to 
health. The inference is, from this Jewish his- 
tory, that the prophets, men of God, were ex- 
expected to heal. They were therefore called 
upon to do so. It was apparently a matter of 
common knowledge that they did such healing, 
as is shown by the story of Naaman. The Jew- 
ish maiden, Naaman's servant, certainly knew 
well the reputation of her nation's " Man of 
God," Elijah, for doing extraordinary cures. 
The method these prophets used, whatever it 
might be, the same accounts indicate, was the 
common one. 

If there is anything in the New Testament 
that stands out prominently, it certainly is 
the healing of physical ills and ails. How did 
Jesus heal the sick, cure the lame and halt, 
restore to the blind their sight ? No one will 
claim that it was by the system of materia 
medica. 



The Fact of the Healing 67 

But even if we allow that the works wrought 
by the Master were wholly exceptional and 
miraculous, there was the healing by the dis- 
ciples who were sent out by him, and who 
also were evidently instructed how to cure. 
And then there are the remarkable works 
of Saint Paul, — his restorations of the sick 
to health and of the poisoned to soundness. 
No material drug or external means was 
employed by him, any more than by the 
other apostles. It would be still harder to 
account, on other than the mental healing 
principle, for the cures afterward performed 
by the Church fathers and Christian saints, 
and by others all the way down the Christian 
centuries, inside and outside of the church 
pale, under her wing and immediate direction 
and independent of her ecclesiastical sanction. 
The Catholic church has always claimed to 
have exercised the divine power conferred to 
heal disease by ways extraordinary. And 
continual and extraordinary healing is part 



68 First Lessons in the New Thought 

and parcel of the early history of the many 
Christian sects, as the Huguenots, Moravians, 
Waldenses, Quakers, Covenanters, and Meth- 
odists. 

There are the many notable healers, besides, 
of every modern nation and century, from 
pagan Appollonius to Father Mathew, the 
Irish temperance champion. Valentine Great- 
rakes, Joseph Gassner, Prince Hohenlohe, 
Dorothea Trudel, and Elizabeth Mix exer- 
cised the healers* art. Martin Luther healed, 
and George Fox, and the late Dr. Board- 
man. 

And now, in the recent years, we have our 
modern phases of mental healing, — faith cure, 
prayer cure, mind cure, and Christian Sci- 
ence. The New Thought believers in mental 
healing hold that these are merely different 
names for essentially one and the same thing. 
The healing is all done on one principle. We 
need not go back to the ancient times, we are 
not obliged to rely on any obscure or doubtful 



The Fact of the Healing 69 

testimony, for proof of the fact of mental 
healing. The experience of the medical pro- 
fession is full of illustrations of this mode of 
cure, the medical books recount the cases, 
some of the ablest minds of the profession 
have accepted understandingly the method 
and have more or less practised it. Indeed, 
all others of its members have used it always 
in some measure, more or less unwittingly, 
though they ignore or repudiate the idea and 
to-day manifest their opposition thereto. 

Besides all these witnesses, bearing volun- 
tary or unwilling testimony to the fact of 
mental healing, there are hundreds upon hun- 
dreds who have been for some years, and are 
now, giving their whole time and strength to 
the practice of it — and with success. And 
yet again there are thousands upon thousands 
living to-day who have experienced the benefits 
of this method of cure ; once sick, perhaps 
considered permanent invalids, now well or 
comparatively so, they are as convinced of its 



70 First Lessons in the New 'Thought 

reality and truth as they are of their own 
conscious existence. 

It having been many times urgently re- 
quested, it will perhaps not be out of place 
here, nor needing any apology, if the author 
of this little work narrates somewhat of his 
own personal experience in this mental cure. 
His experience may be not altogether valueless 
testimony, in the judgment of his readers, as 
to its reality and efficacy. The opportunity 
of the present writer, as an eye-witness, for 
observation and study of the practical work- 
ings of this cure has been quite large and 
exceptionally good. That the circumstances 
were such as to afford this will be apparent 
from the facts when stated. 

In the first place, he himself was healed of 
long-standing difficulties. And, moreover, it 
was an experiment in self-healing, and a suc- 
cessful one. The application of the cure to 
himself was made purposely and especially for 
the experience it would afford, — and for its 



The Fact of the Healing 71 

satisfaction also, if it were a success. The 
physical malady was a severe form of dys- 
pepsia, of years' standing, and with all the 
usual, if not all the possible, attendants and 
results, — biliousness, jaundice, head -aches, 
colds, coughs, intermittent appetite, and weak- 
ness, he being incapacitated every week or 
two for the ordinary duties and enjoyments of 
life, with much discomfort and loss of time. 
Frequent for years had been, almost as a 
matter of course, the resort to doctors and 
medicines, but with the result of only partial 
relief at times, never any real cure of the 
difficulties. 

Success in getting rid of these troubles 
followed very readily when once the princi- 
ples and method of this cure had been mas- 
tered in some degree, and without use of any 
other means whatsoever ; so that for the 
period of some years not a day's sickness 
occurred, and scarcely the loss of a meal. 
And during these years there was no trouble 



J2 Firs t Lessons in the New Thought 

with "colds," further than occasional slight 
symptoms, though precautions against them 
were almost wholly abandoned ; while pre- 
viously these afflictions had been suffered 
almost weekly, notwithstanding that nearly 
every precaution that was possible was taken 
to prevent them. 

So much for practical experience gained in 
self-healing. It need hardly be added that 
the tests of the cure itself thus made, and the 
observations of the conditions and laws of its 
workings, have been exceedingly interesting 
as well as instructive. 

In the next place, besides exercising this 
novel art of healing upon others not a little, 
and with fair success, it has been the writer's 
good fortune to enjoy advantages, among the 
best, for observing and closely following cases, 
— a large number and of great variety, under 
treatment, and during the time and process of 
recovery. Every facility was thus afforded 
him to judge of the reality and of the modus 



The Fact of the Healing 73 

operandi of mental healing. This will seem 
plainly evident when it is said that the prac- 
titioner dealing with these cases is a member 
of the writer's family; the treatment of the 
patients has gone forward largely under his 
roof, and their condition and progress have 
been subject to daily and closest scrutiny. 
The practice has been quite large, extending 
over a period of several years, and almost 
every kind of disease has been treated, first 
or last ; consumption, rheumatism, dyspepsia, 
and so on, to the end of the chapter. The 
reader of this account naturally may have 
some curiosity to hear the opinion, if it is any 
way competent and unprejudiced, of one who 
has had such an experience in regard to this 
mode of cure. 

By such a one, it must certainly be felt to 
be a matter of duty as well as a pleasure to 
bear his testimony on a subject of so much 
moment and interest ; and it is hoped that 
this testimony is wholly unbiased, as well as 



74 First Lessons in the New Thought 

entirely within bounds, as to statement. The 
privilege has been accorded him to witness 
what would surely be called, looked at from 
the usual viewpoint, very remarkable healing 
done by this method ; the privilege to see, for 
example, a fibrous tumor of four or five pounds* 
weight entirely disappear under this treatment, 
not to return ; to see an injury of the spine, 
that had been suffered for several years and 
had not yielded to the treatment of expert 
physicians, removed in a few weeks ; to see 
rheumatism of long standing, and supposed to 
be inherited, entirely and apparently perma- 
nently cured ; to see dyspepsia, very obstinate 
and of some years' continuance, and that had 
defied all other treatment, completely arrested 
and overcome ; also the cure of cases of insan- 
ity, in various stages of development ; of nerv- 
ous prostration of a number of years' duration, 
and which had received only temporary check 
or relief ; of constipation of severest form and 
many years' standing ; of indigestion, nasal 



The Fact of the Healing 75 

catarrh, neuralgia, head-aches, piles, sprains, 
and other forms of organic and functional 
disease. No cases are mentioned here except 
those of apparently actual cure, susceptible of 
pretty strong verification ; and any one desir- 
ing it can have satisfactory testimony thereto 
in any one of these cases, from the patients 
themselves or from their immediate friends. 

It occurs to the writer, in closing, that, in 
all probability, the exclamation will be forth- 
coming from some of his readers, upon perusal 
of these statements : " What, you do not 
mean to assert that an organic disease — one 
that is in fact such — can really be cured in 
this way?" This interrogatory has been so 
usually made that it has come to be expected ; 
and some remark has been pretty sure to 
follow it about " mental cure being good, sup- 
posedly and naturally, for merely imaginary 
diseases, and for nervous troubles which are 
largely in the mind. ,, Also the remark is 
likely to be made, in a half-serious, half- 



j 6 First Lessons in the New Thought 

sarcastic tone : " You think all diseases can 
be cured by this mental method ! — then " (as 
though this followed as a logical sequence) 
" nobody need ever die, according to that/' 

These quite common inquiries and com- 
ments are cited here and now on purpose to 
answer them, and to answer them in good 
faith and to the best of our ability from the 
rational point of view, for the benefit perchance 
of those who seriously make them, as well as 
for the benefit of cavilers. 

And this is our answer : We have no hes- 
itation in stating our conviction, gained from 
the observation and experience briefly detailed 
in the foregoing pages, that every kind of 
disease known, which is not from its nature 
incurable, can be cured under this system of 
treatment. In fact, all such have been so 
cured in these recent years. 

As is well known to-day, what is called 
organic disease is cured again and again, 
when the conditions are favorable ; — and 



The Fact of the Healing 77 

Mental Healing means, in its large sense, we 
take it, perfect conditions, especially perfect 
mental conditions, or the most perfect pos- 
sible, for the curative power, natural and 
divine, to work properly and without obstruc- 
tions. 

Again, the physical change we call death, 
or the dissolution of the body, it is taken for 
granted by rational mental healers, is in the 
order of Nature and will come to every child 
of earth ; but that death by disease is inevita- 
ble, necessary, and natural, is held to be an 
unwarrantable conclusion. On the contrary, 
it is believed — strange it is that there should 
be any occasion to say it — that health, not 
disease, is natural and intended of God, and 
that dissolution from old age is the only 
natural death. 



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MAY, 6 1304 



